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Big John, Big guy, Boss as some of us called him was a respected colleague and a mentor to many of us in the engineering department at the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. It is with great sorrow that we are here today to say farewell to our very dear friend - John Kasper.

He spent more than a dozen years serving the public in the capacity of Project Engineering management by adhering to strict standards and a strong work ethic. His name was written with P.E. as a suffix representing the Professional Engineer that he was, but for those of us who had the privilege to work for and with him, we knew him more as a teacher. John was always patient and generous in sharing his time and knowledge. He said, it was pure selfishness on his part – because the more we know and could do, the easier his job would be.

Life at work wasn’t always about work with John. He was always willing to converse on his view of politics, medicine, science and domestics – particularly baking. There wasn’t any one of us at the office who didn’t have a chance to enjoy the taste of his homemade cookies. He introduced us to the SCA and elaborated on its profound impact on his life. Mostly, he often spoke of his family and was genuinely proud to be a father and husband. Anyone who knew John would definitely know about his family before he met them.

At the office, John always had something to give out to whoever wanted or needed it.  If it was not his cookies, it was tickets to a ball game, or jokes, personal or professional advice, shared experiences, text or reference books to make the task he assigned to you easier. If he didn’t have anything to give, he would give you the comfort to make working with him a pleasant experience. Sometimes because he had so little for so many, John would use a lottery to distribute what he had, and if you won in the last one, you couldn’t enter in the subsequent draws till everyone had a fair share. I won the ticket to my first Steelers’ game in one of John’s game ticket lotteries.

John made the decision about a year-and-a-half ago to terminate his appointment with PWSA, and start his own business. We were surprised because we considered him a fixture within the organization and would definitely miss the daily interactions. But, we wished him well, and we were confident he would have success in his venture.

When we received the news of John’s passing, many words describing him started to flow about as we tried to absorb the reality of it. We would like to share some of these with you – bold and adventurous, educated and knowledgeable, patient and giving, principled and honorable, outgoing and friendly – were just a few of them. I remember when I first started working with John, I respected him for his knowledge and principle so much that I wanted to learn as much as I could from him. I expected it to be rough and tough, so I didn’t expect he could and would tell jokes, and the fact that I wasn’t expecting a senior management like him to be jovial to junior staffs like myself, I couldn’t tell when he jokes. As some of my colleagues here might remember, John liked telling jokes to boost morale at the office. More often than not when he tells a joke, I would be there with a pen and my note pad looking like he was about to give me an equation to solve to save the world from falling apart. At the end of it all, when he see how puzzled and confused I look, he would look at me with a smile and say "Tunde, that was just a joke", and "Please don’t write that down."

John’s memory will be with some of us for a long, long time – how do you forget your first professional job and the person that gave it to you.

Lastly, we want to share with you one of John’s favorites. ‘When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.’

Thank you John, you will be sorely missed.